Is This A Hacking Attempt?

[mosan]

Got a Facebook Message from a person I consider an associate that appears to be a hacking attempt.  

A question I thought would be very easy to answer took over 12 hours before I got a reply. Now, there is nothing wrong with getting a reply 12 hours later, it's just that shortly after, I got a follow up message from that same person professing to need my "assistance". He said his "phone was messed up, and he needs to recover his information". I replied that I wasn't a phone tech and told him to contact his service provider and they would know how to recover his phone. 

 

Fast forward to 7 days later and said person messages me again saying "Send me your phone number" to receive a code (mind you he didn't say security code) so he could unlock and/or restore his phone's data. 

Now I'm thoroughly puzzled. I unwittingly sent him my phone number right away thinking I would receive a code of some sort which I would then forward to him. 

 

Oh, and one thing I didn't mention before is that the first name on the account had changed to one I didn't recognize. That's when it hit me...I should probably ask him for his phone number so I can talk to him, make sure it is in fact him and just give him the code over the phone. 

 

When I asked him for his phone number, the account immediately got deleted! 

 

Now I'm wondering what actually happened. Did his phone get lost and someone is trying to activate it? Is someone trying to get access to private information to steal money from a bank account? A blackmail attempt?  A scornful partner trying to dig up some dirt? 

 

Hopefully the person I'm referring to sees this post and replies so we can clear up this mystery...

[KhunBENQ]

For me your story goes like:

Why easy when you can do it complicated?

Person has internet access?

Tell him to call you on video with whatever messenger available.

Just had such an experience. An offer too good to be true. Texting on LINE messenger.

I asked for a video call.

One lame excuse (I am eating...) and then 

dead and forgotten.

No more response.

[Peterw42]

OP, why don't you simply call the person sending messages ? FB messenger does voice and video calls.

[digbeth]

there used to be account recovery procedure where a code is sent to a 'trusted friend' for them to get back to their account if they forgot their password or whatever

 

the person could have added you as a 'trusted friend' 

 

then a 'hacker' pretending to be this person trying to get access to their account would need to contact you to get code sent from facebook to you 

 

[Sparktrader]

2 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

For me your story goes like:

Why easy when you can do it complicated?

Person has internet access?

Tell him to call you on video with whatever messenger available.

Just had such an experience. An offer too good to be true. Texting on LINE messenger.

I asked for a video call.

One lame excuse (I am eating...) and then 

dead and forgotten.

No more response.

Scammer guy on whatsap he pretends to be a youtuber.  Copies there name and asks you to join a crypto platform which is a fraud.

[mosan]

4 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

OP, why don't you simply call the person sending messages ? FB messenger does voice and video calls.

Good point...I shall proceed accordingly!

[mosan]

I expect that if someone adds me as a trusted friend, they would let me know.  The fact this happened "unexpectedly" is what aroused my suspicion and potentially averted the hack.